West (History Interrupted Book 1) Page 14

  I knelt beside the fire, unable to feel my fingers or toes. I was in no shape to run, not with half my body frozen and the dress weighing me down. I debated silently what to say. Without turning my back to him, I got as close as possible to the fire and didn’t start to relax until the heat had sunk into my skin.

  “You want a change of clothes?” the sheriff asked.

  There it was again. Near-concern. It contrasted greatly with his determination to talk to me and the threats of throwing me in prison until I did. “You keep gowns here?” I replied skeptically.

  Amusement flickered across his chiseled features. “No, but you can wear my clothes while we dry yours.”

  After a brief hesitation, I nodded. He rose and disappeared into one doorway, through which I saw a single lantern burning, returning a moment later with folded clothing.

  I took it and went into the room. It was a bedroom, tiny enough that my knees bumped the bed when I closed the door to change. The bedding was rumpled, a simple dresser along one wall, and a washbasin and pitcher on a table in a corner. His clothing was soft and well worn, patched and stitched several times with skill that defied mine after three days of Nell trying to teach me.

  There was no sign of wealth in his humble home, and I tugged on the clothes with a silent vow to return the worn trousers and baggy shirt, because he didn’t seem to have much of anything.

  Unless he murders me. Then all bets are off. I sighed. He was quiet and intense – but not dangerous, especially since I knew the secret he and Running Bear hid in a cave. Yet I wasn’t able to figure out what he wanted, how he seemed to know what he shouldn’t, why Running Bear had memories of the sheriff with each of the three women Carter sent back.

  My movements slowed as I dwelled on the images from Running Bear’s mind. I was overthinking again, starting to stress about the unknown. It did me no good to dwell on it but was really hard to let go of.

  I gathered my dress and returned to the main room of the small abode.

  “Hang it there.” He pointed to a rope strung across the cabin on one side.

  I did so and faced him. My feet were cold, a chill working its way around my ankles.

  His gaze lingered on me. I didn’t know how to read the look and wished I had been able to access his empathic memories.

  “What’re you doing out in this storm, Miss Josie?” he asked with tested politeness that told me he already suspected something.

  “My father is dying, and I came to –”

  “You can’t lie to me.”

  I resisted the urge to roll my eyes and returned to the hearth. He followed me with his gaze, and I found myself wishing he’d take off his shirt again. After a long moment of flustered, flurried thought, I sighed. “Are you gonna hang me?”

  “Hang you?” he echoed. “You have a strange notion about me, Miss Josie.” His brow furrowed, as if he was trying to figure me out. “Though I reckon you’re safe so long as you keep my secret about Fighting Badger.”

  “Great.”

  “Are you going to avoid telling me the truth all night?”

  I regarded him longer than I probably should have. There was something captivating about his native skin and brilliant eyes, the planed features and intelligence behind his questions that left me feeling both skewered and safe. “I found the other three girls,” I said softly and watched for his reaction.

  “Found?” he leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “What do you mean, found? Where are they?”

  “They’re kinda dead.”

  He frowned.

  “Well, not kinda. They are dead.” The words were hard to say. For once, I wished to experience the sense of being disconnected, so I could talk about them without my throat tightening and my stomach churning. With the sheriff, I never felt that disconnect. If anything, he grounded me.

  “How do you know?” His intensity and curiosity were too strong for him to be faking.

  “Their bodies are in the well behind the horse barn,” I replied.

  “And you found them how?”

  “I’m not called Talks to Spirits for nothing,” I joked weakly.

  He tilted his head, unconvinced. It sounded ridiculous to my ears, too, but it was true, a matter of technology rather than the supernatural.

  “Someone killed them,” I added. “I’ve been trying to figure out if I’m next.”

  “So you ran away tonight.”

  “Not … well …” I debated telling him more. “Who are you, Taylor?”

  “Just the local law.”

  “Bullshit!”

  He smiled faintly. “Miss Josie, now may not be the right time for that.”

  “How so? You’ve been trying to corner me since I got here to talk. Why not now?”

  “I didn’t murder the others, but there’s a chance I might kill you, if what you’re doing here is … dangerous.”

  That’s not good. We were talking around something again with neither of us wanting to be the first to crack. “It sounds weird, but … I don’t think you’ll hurt me. I don’t know why.” I sensed something … not a memory, not a whisper but an instinct, one I barely picked up. It was … warm. Cheerful. “You won’t.” I shivered. My wet hair was soaking through the shirt I borrowed from him.

  “How sure are you?” he asked. He passed me a blanket, and I wrapped myself in it with a grateful sigh.

  “This sure.” I nodded to the blanket. “You talk mean, but your actions are very different.”

  “It’s the Choctaw side of me.”

  Another charged silence fell. We gazed at one another.

  “So if neither of us wants to talk about who we are and why we’re here, then what do we talk about?” I asked.

  “Fighting Badger told us why you claim to be here.”

  Never trust a psychopath. “It was a … dream,” I lied.

  “Tell me about this dream.” He was amused again, calling my bluff.

  I hesitated, debating internally. I needed help to figure out my purpose and yet, the sheriff had too many secrets for me to feel comfortable telling him everything. That said, he was also in a position to influence the twins that were confusing my brain chips.

  “I had a … dream,” I started. “Your twin brothers start a war that ends in the deaths of a million people. I meant to go to the chief of your tribe, so I could warn him about this dream.” The explanation sounded lame to my ears, but he was listening closely.

  “You want to warn my uncle that my brothers are going to start a war?” he repeated.

  “Yes.”

  “Why would they do that?”

  “I’m not sure. Something happens in a few days.”

  The ah-ha look on his face made me think I said too much. He sat back. “And you thought the chief could ensure it doesn’t happen.”

  I shrugged. “I thought maybe he could convince them not to do something stupid before he dies.”

  The sheriff raised an eyebrow.

  “I mean … not that he will die in four days, just that …” I was digging a hole, unable to stop beneath the gorgeous gaze focused on me. “Did I mention you’ve got a great body?” Good deflection, Josie.

  “You’re a might bit touched,” he said and shook his head.

  “But you do.”

  The sheriff ran a hand through his hair and hesitated, as if uncertain how to react.

  Intrigued by the brief extinguishing of his quiet confidence, I began to suspect something else about him that never before crossed my mind. His discomfort touching me, his attempt to keep distance between us … “Do you go out with women much?” I asked.

  “No. Why?”

  “You like me.”

  His eyebrows shot up.

  I laughed. “You do, don’t you?”

  “If this is your attempt to derail this discussion, Miss Josie, I – ”

  “Admit it and I’ll tell you something you want to know!” I teased, sensing a new way to keep him disarmed around me.

  The sheriff glared at
me. “I find you a might bit attractive, yes.”

  “Okay.” I didn’t know why it was a triumph, but any give from the sexy, hardened cowboy before me was a victory. “My dream is real. Something bad is going to happen.”

  He waited.

  “Fighting Badger is right. I can talk to spirits the way he can,” I added, good humor fading as I thought of the disturbed man in the cave. “I can read him. I’m … torn between pity and horror. His mind is nothing but shadows and turmoil and pain unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. But he hurts people …”

  “Then he is not mad. Or maybe, both of you are,” the sheriff murmured. I heard his concern and troubled affection for the man. His look of consternation shifted to me. “You rode out in a lightning storm because of this … dream.”

  “And finding the bodies of the girls who came before me.” This time when I shivered, coldness had nothing to do with it. “You know, before I came here, I …” I stopped, hearing my words.

  He was listening too intently.

  “Never mind,” I whispered.

  “Keep talking, Miss Josie. We’re finally getting somewhere.”

  It was my turn to be in the hot seat. Racking my mind for a way to keep from being cornered by the persistent man, I retorted, “Take off your shirt, and I might!”

  “That wouldn’t be appropriate, Miss Josie.”

  I almost laughed at the Nell-like response, entertained by the repressed sexuality of a man who would have no trouble lining up baby-mamas and one-night stands in my time. “I’m afraid we’re at an impasse.” Victorious once more, I shifted to face the fire, content that our conversation was over.

  “Nell said you were different,” he said. “The doctor told me John isn’t well off.”

  “No, he’s not,” I replied, mood dampening. “Philip can’t wait for him to be gone.” I nibbled my lower lip, once more finding it hard to look the other way. This reality was temporary and the real-Josie probably dead already. Why anything here should matter … why anything did matter …

  “You care for John.”

  “Of course I do. He’s a good man,” I replied. “Very kind and sweet. Just wants to spend the last days of his life with the daughter he loves.” The guilt was back, stronger when I realized John was likely to die soon without ever knowing the true fate of his beloved daughter.

  “Yet you left him on his deathbed in the middle of the night and in a storm. What are you not telling me?”

  I’m scared. I didn’t want to admit it to him or myself. He was calm, even-tempered and attractive – a combination I found a little too appealing right now. I had the urge to trust him once more, the same way I did Carter. Look where that got me.

  At first, the task to change history seemed straightforward. Now, I debated how I was supposed to change the actions of the men around me without revealing what I was, without becoming emotionally entangled about anyone like John, and without being killed off by whoever was hunting down time travelers.

  “It’s complicated. You wouldn’t understand,” I said.

  “Try me.”

  I glanced at him, once more ensnared by his green gaze and quiet strength. The longer I was around him, the less I wanted to maintain the barrier between me and everyone else and the easier it became to talk to him.

  “Tell me about the girls who came before me,” I said, wanting to understand what exactly happened to them.

  “They were all named Josie, all looked like you and all disappeared soon after I met them.”

  “Why you?” I asked with some frustration.

  “They came to me for help.”

  “Help?” I echoed. “I don’t understand that.” What did they know that I didn’t? “Swear you didn’t have anything to do with their disappearance?”

  “If you’ll trust the word of a half-breed.”

  There was no self-pity or self-doubt about him, but I almost felt bad for someone who belonged to neither of the worlds he was charged with protecting.

  “I’d trust you over Philip,” I replied. “I just can’t figure out the connection between the other Josies and you.”

  “You know what I see?” he asked, frustration in his voice. He sat forward, almost near enough for his leg to brush my shoulder. “I see four women who were too much alike not to know each other. Three of them disappeared within two days of visiting me, without telling me who they were afraid of or why all of you seem to be out to find me. I’ll ask you, Josie. Why are you scared? Because it’s probably the same reason they were.”

  I shivered, his words sinking in with more clarity and impact than I wanted.

  Two days. What put the other girls at the bottom of the well? Their inability to conform to a society they weren’t familiar with? Someone becoming suspicious of them? Talking to the sheriff?

  The others Carter swore were trying to outmaneuver him in a chess game I wasn’t able to see?

  My eyes fell to the sheriff’s full lips. He was sexy – and impossible to read the way I did everyone else.

  “You wanna tell me what’s going on before you disappear too?” he added.

  I looked away.

  “I didn’t think so.” Quiet anger radiated off him. He rose and paced in the walk space between the sitting area and the door leading to his bedroom, hands on hips.

  “I’m sorry. I can’t,” I said.

  “Even if it means you end up dead like the others?”

  Ouch. I flinched.

  “Look, Josie, I don’t know how else to tell you this, but you being here … it’s not for the purpose you think it is. It has nothing to do with Running Bear or his brother.”

  “How do you know that?”

  He was quiet, pensive gaze out the window. “Because I do.” The sheriff ran his hands through his hair. “Maybe you need help, Josie, and don’t want to admit it. I reckon if the other girls ended up dead, someone in that house is after you. I doubt it’s your cousin Philip.”

  “He was my first thought, too.” Alarm fluttered through me. The fact the sheriff was coming to the same conclusion I did, that it wasn’t a coincidence the girls were in the bottom of the well near John’s house, scared me.

  His words had a ring of truth to them I didn’t want to hear. How was I supposed to know who the threat was or whether or not I was truly in danger?

  The images in my mind of the phones and skeletons made me want to crawl under the bed and never leave. Who had done it, if not Philip or the sheriff?

  Carter had given me one warning about a man who didn’t want history changed. Was it possible he was resorting to killing to prevent it? If so, who was he? A townsperson who saw the much-celebrated daughter of John return four times?

  “This just gets worse,” I murmured.

  The sheriff’s suspicion hadn’t softened with our talk. If anything, I guessed he was thinking even worse of me, considering I had all but admitted to not being John’s real daughter.

  “What happened to the real Josephine?” he asked quietly.

  Holy shit. Does this guy have empathic memory? “I am the real Josephine.”

  The thick silence was tense. I didn’t look at him, instead focused on the dancing flames of the fire in front of me.

  “I don’t want to see you hurt, Miss Josie,” he added. “Despite your … peculiarities.”

  I smiled. “Thanks. I can handle it.” Whatever it is.

  “I don’t think you can. I don’t think you’ll see the danger coming.”

  That terrifies me. I had come to the same conclusion, and I hated, hated thinking such dark thoughts.

  “I can help you,” he continued.

  Studying him, I had the sense he didn’t mean in the way a sheriff protected the people of his town, that he was talking around something again. I just didn’t know what that entailed, why it was suddenly harder to breathe, why I suspected I was scratching the surface of something I didn’t think I could handle. “I’m ready for bed,” I said instead.

  “You can sleep in
my room.”

  “Thanks.” I rose and went the long way around the seating area to the door of his bedroom. A part of me wanted to ask what he meant about helping me, but I stopped myself.

  Carter told me not to reveal anything about who I was. Lying was hard, trusting him harder, but I had faith in both for now.

  I went into the room, at once noticing the chill without the fire. The sound of rain was loud on the tin roof, the lightning gone. Wrapped in the blanket, I crawled into the covers of his narrow bed and breathed deeply. His scent was much stronger on the worn sheets and blanket of his bed.

  Dimming the lantern, I closed my eyes, comforted by his homey scent. The discussion with him replayed through my thoughts, and I listened for a long moment to see if his possessions would speak to me the way my surroundings sometimes did.

  There were no empathic memories here at all, as if he didn’t exist or leave traces of himself the way others did. I relaxed and rested my head on his pillow, wriggling beneath the blanket to grab my cell. I typed a message to Carter then replaced the phone in the pocket of my borrowed trousers. Either the chip was faulty or there was something unusual about Taylor.

  I didn’t realize how busy my mind had become with the empathic memories until it was silent for the first time in several days. Instead of comforting me, all I could think about was the skeletons at the bottom of John’s well.

  Sleep didn’t come, and every time I closed my eyes, I saw them and experienced a flare of new fear. After an hour or so struggling to block the thoughts and fall asleep, I sat up restlessly. It was too dark for me to fumble with the lantern.

  Wrapping the blanket around me, I left the bedroom, relaxing once I entered the warmth and light of the main room. The sheriff was stretched out next to the fire on his stomach, still wearing his shirt, as if he feared me walking in on me.

  “Can’t sleep?” he asked, hearing the creak of the floorboards beneath my feet.

  “No.” I crossed to the fire and lay down beside him.

  He sat, his dark hair tousled. “I’ll go to the barn.”

  I laughed. “Are you afraid I’ll bite you?”

  “No, Josie. An un-chaperoned, unmarried woman –”

  “Lay down and shut up, Sheriff,” I ordered lightly. “I found three bodies today. You can protect me from anyone who wants to make it a fourth.”